Hey everyone, I decided to try a video tutorial instead of a typed out one. This allows me to go into further depth and really explain positioning / battles. If you however don't like the video example please provide feed back and I will type out the guide as well. This video guide is approximately 1 hour 20 minutes long.
The information below was made during heart of the swarm beta, 90% of this guide still works at high levels and therefore I decided to put it in a spoiler instead of scrap it.
>.> I put this in the wrong section! It's 2 am I'm sorry is there a way to delete this or move it down to the heart of the swarm section? Completely my mistake!
This guide shows a few ways to proper utilize the widow mine and mech control against zerg in heart of the swarm. It shows a very aggressive play style that focuses heavily on positioning. You do not need a lot of APM to do this strategy. After playing 5-7 hours a day every day since the beta came out I have been trying to find mech work really well. We went through some changes through a few patches however over the last 2-3 weeks this has been my most effective strategy against zerg. It works even if they know the strategy is coming and it's pretty solid all around.
I am HTOMario, I play a lot of heart of the swarm after a long break from WOL and wanted to share with you all what I enjoyed as a Terran player strategy wise against zerg. I know bio works really well however I have always loved the positional fights that come with mech. In this guide I use a lot of widow mines, turrets and siege tanks for control of ground and sky. I'll try to help you learn how to control it, when to control it and where to control it.
I have starcraft experience since 1998-2000 area, I was at a C To B level on ICCUP later on in the years. ON WOL beta I was top 84 as Dragonfury and managed 2 seasons as grandmaster when it was released. After I joined HTO I paid for a name change and lost the record to show it and HTO died so I decided to take a break. Now I'm Grandmaster in HOTS every re set so far and face a lot of high end people like Dragon, TSLHyun and so forth.
General build order (2 variations depending on your style, both have near same timings however 1 allows more macro and safe play while the other is more aggressive.)
9 Supply depot 12 barracks 15-16 1 marine, Orbital command 17-18 Expand 17-18 Supply depo 19-20 2 Refineries 24 bunker 26 Factory / tech lab on barracks 27 factory / Reactor on barracks 29 3rd refinery Begin producing 1 siege tank, 2 widow mines and marines. First extra 100 gas get siege mode.
At 8:00 You should push out with 2 widow mines, 4 marines 1 scv 1 siege tank with siege mode on the way. Rally units to the attack and pressure the enemy with a small contain. The build deviates from here. The only thing that stays universal is that I drop an engineering bay at the 8:30-9:00 minute mark and start producing 1 missile turret at a time incase of mutalisk play or future drops.
9 Supply depot 12 barracks 13 refinery 15-16 Orbital command, tech lab. 17 supply depo start producing reapers you want a maximum of 2-3 total into marines. Feel free to use your scouting scv to drop a bunker to get him to pull drones early or have a haven for your reapers. Usually I put this in the front, occasionally in the back. It helps prevent creep if you keep them in the front. 20 supply depo / second refinery 21 Command center 23 Factory 24 bunker 27 second factory
Notice that the aggressive opening actually pushes out 20 seconds later because of the reaper harass, don't use this opening if you are not comfortable or confident in your reaper abilities.
Produce widow mines / marines / siege tanks until your push at 8:20 where you should have 2 siege tanks 1 widow mine 4 marines 1 scv. After you push start a reactor on the barracks so you can swap them out later. Rally units to the attack and pressure the enemy with a small contain. The build deviates from here. Some things to note. If you go for the safe opening you can get your armory later on for the drilling claws upgrade as you will have more widow mines to spread out. When you go the aggressive opening you want to get the armory faster so you can re position easier.
+During the push you want to expand to get the extra 2 gas. I usually secure the third with 2 widow mines a siege tank and a 1-3 missile turrets depending on the need for it.
+Your third and fourth base SHOULD be a planetary fortress as it makes it easier to keep them. Minerals really isn't the issue the gas is the hardest part.
+I also add in 2 factories after I have started a third base.
+After 4 factories you should get at minimum 1 starport to start producing vikings to kill overseers.
+On 4 bases you want 6-8 factories with an even number of reactors / tech labs.
+Once you smell broodlords or you scan near the 16 minute mark you should be working towards 3 starports with reactor.
+When I start +3 attack I add in a second armory to throw in vehicle weapons and air attack.
In your push you want to see what the zerg player is going for, you will nearly always find out what is going on with the push above because he has to use those units to defend. If you don't and for some reason your army gets crushed immediately scan the main as you have probably scouted out most of the natural in your aggression. You're looking for tech structures, not how much gas he has but tech structures as you want to know if it's going to be a ground or air fight.
Positioning positioning! Control the map and defend like a mad man. How do you position properly you may ask? I'll show you. Start producing widow mines / siege tanks and vikings. You want your engineering bay at the 9 minute mark and position your tanks properly with missile turrets and widow mines near them. This helps keep zerg at max range when any engagement is going. Your aim here is to control space and make sure you can take a 4th base as you really need the gass for it.
From here on you want to still take your expansion and place 1 siege tank and 2 widow mines near your third to help hold aggression. It's best to place it near a turret or an access point so you can see the attack coming early on. I went for the access point on this map.
These types of controls help stop overseers and vipers from coming in, combine this with +1 range on missile turrets a few siege tanks and widow mines and suddenly you are looking very very contained. If you look at the map you can see I'm attacking his third while holding the entire middle with 5-6 turrets, 5 siege tanks 12 widow mines. If he moves I won't only know, I'll have some form of a resistance.
An important thing to note is that you can't just have your whole army controlling the map, you need a squad that can not only push sections but help defend others. You have to decide where it's best used.
Rally units coming out of the factory together and near the contains however not too far from your base so you can defend in many situations. The farther you are from your reinforcements the easier it is to break you, however the closer you are the more you have to struggle to recover ground as he just pushed past your reinforcements. Keep an even distance between you are containing, your factories and where your units are sent to.
Using your barracks to make tech labs at any place you aren't planning on expanding is great to see if the zerg does. It's also great to use it on the zergs expansions so you can see the timings.
A great example of map control, widow mine on expansions, randomly placed around map to provide vision and block access paths, missile turrets with tanks mines and 2 watch towers in middle, vikings accompanying and expanding in opposite directions to force the zerg to choose a side to attack while the other prospers.
Specific things to remember against specific compositions.
Be sure to always make sure your units are spread as far as they can with missile turret fillers. This helps the zerg take the most amount of damage for the fewest resource cost to you. It also helps prevent vipers from gassing your tanks constantly. I like to space widow mines here in between siege tanks and a turrets near as many mines as I can. Throwing in a random PDD (point defense drone, raven unit) helps massively against hydralisks.
You also need to be spread out here however instead of all missile turrets you can throw in a command center that you are going to use later or supply depo's to help create a barrier between you and the zerglings. Splitting up widow mines is more important then siege tanks here so they don't all fire on a pack of zerglings that's going to die in 1 hit anyway.
At an early stage of swarm host a small amount of units can easily hold them with a bunker repair. However once there are a critical mass of them you MUST have siege tanks to hold them off cost efficiently. And do not engage swarm hosts if you aren't making progress towards them. A great to do is flank them AFTER they have spawned their locusts in a different direction. This allows you to drop widow mines fast on them with a scan on the swarm hosts and nuke them all to death. Banshee's are a great throw in here too!
Make sure to favor more thors depending on how many ultralisks he has. If he goes Ultralisk / Zergling go hellbat / thor / widow mine. If he goes ultralisk / roach go Thor / Siege tank / Widow mine. The roach or ling question is a huge factor on if you go more hellbats or siege tanks to help hold off the utralisks.
The more hydralisks you see the more you want to invest in ravens for point defense drones. Doing this will not only allow you to be more cost efficient but it will allow you to build a raven count to help stop corrupters shots and blow up ultralisks or broodlords.
Oh no an air fight what do I do?!
Make sure to have proper turret / widow mine placement this is very very important against mutalisk play. For defensive purposes I would go with something like this. 2 in your mineral line and 1 near the farthest gas. This gives your gas some protection and allows your scvs to easily repair the missile turrets so you can mine for longer.
You can see that I have the edges protected, a few missile turrets and 1 in my factory line just in case he decides to run through. Your production facilities are the most important thing.
Throw around some random widow mines just in case he accidentally flies over them, if he does awesome! If he doesn't well you know where he isn't.
Finally for your defense you want to make sure you make your 4th command center safe so keep it near your middle base. You're usually there so you can go west or east depending on where he attacks. Make sure you have at least 1 thor to accompany the mines and draw fire and make sure the mines are ready to move out!
Here you want 3-4 siege tanks at most, get lots of thors and nearly double the amount of widow mines if you can. This will heavily stop any type of zerglings / mutalisk / baneling play. It's actually I think a soft counter if you can survive the aggression.
Make sure you pump out a lot of viking thor widow mine. Your viking and thor can draw great fire while your widow mine now gets auto targetted less by blizzards ui can just run under the broodlords or corruptors and plant. This gives you massive AOE damage if positioned / scouted right.
>.> I put this in the wrong section! It's 2 am I'm sorry is there a way to delete this or move it down to the heart of the swarm section? Completely my mistake!
I didn't mean to and I'm not sure if I should re post it there and wait for this to be deleted or if it will be moved. I'm going to wait until they take action. If they delete it i'll re post it there, however I hope they just move it.
Nice guide. This is actually something similar to what I was trying against zerg, I do however generally more a mix between widow mines and battle hellions. Especially in the beginning I like them to hold off lings, with your initial army you need to really watch out you dont get caught out of position. Later on hellbats are a very nice meatshield for siege tanks. Granted sufficient siege tanks do the same. And your strat is a lot more complete/thought out than what I use
Something I ran into that was kinda scary are nydus worms. Positional play becomes a whole lot less positional when he nydusses past you. Luckily my opponent insisted on doing it into my main/natural/third, where I could keep killing his nydusses with SCVs/few units, but if he just would have been happy with going past my blockades I couldn't have stopped the worms.
The best counter for heavy widow mine usage like this early on is probably overlord speed.
Overlords can survive a hit of a widow mine, so a group of 6 or so speed overlords flying over a mech army protected by widow mines can disable the mines quite well before the rest moves in.
Muta play feels rediculously easy to stop with mech, the minor muta buffs are a joke compared to how much weaker muta/ling is overall. Hellbats stomp lings REDICULOUSLY hard making them pretty much useless against mech, ie zerg has to go roach making it harder to mass muta's. Widow mines, especially with new burrow time, are just rediculously good defense against muta's, hell even vikings with your free armor upgrades aren't too bad.
Zerg's best chance against mech right now is probably roach with a few infestor into viper/ultra. Spire play feels dodgy since muta's delay your hive so damn much and are really crap against the mech army eventually (everything having armor upgrades almost completely negates the bounce). Broodlords even feel worse than ultra/viper as the final anti-mech composition because of the new thor, new seeker missile and easily upgraded vikings that can deal with it fairly well.
On December 15 2012 19:20 Sissors wrote: Nice guide. This is actually something similar to what I was trying against zerg, I do however generally more a mix between widow mines and battle hellions. Especially in the beginning I like them to hold off lings, with your initial army you need to really watch out you dont get caught out of position. Later on hellbats are a very nice meatshield for siege tanks. Granted sufficient siege tanks do the same. And your strat is a lot more complete/thought out than what I use
Something I ran into that was kinda scary are nydus worms. Positional play becomes a whole lot less positional when he nydusses past you. Luckily my opponent insisted on doing it into my main/natural/third, where I could keep killing his nydusses with SCVs/few units, but if he just would have been happy with going past my blockades I couldn't have stopped the worms.
With the position I have I can see nearly every corner of my base, I play watching the minimap a lot and I haven't had a nydus worm in my base in months. It's true that it can do damage however I always have some force that isn't holding ground that is gaining or defending it. This allows for heavy pressure to where he can't nydus me or heavy defense as to where it's not cost efficient. I do like hellbats it's just that I haven't needed them with this strategy yet.
This could be awesome, I can't wait to get home and try it out! Positional Mech play hasn't really looked viable yet so this should hopefully fix that.
Do you defend until 4 base before building a Thor/Raven kind of composition? Do you start sacrificing mines as well? In effect it feels like you sacrifice mid game tanks for widow mines.
I love mine position shots. Much like the guides on how to sim-city an FFE, I think these sorts of things are super helpful for specific maps. I cannot wait until people start timing out builds with widow mines and tanks saying "You can hold x-position until the x minute mark and after that your opponent will have gotten y-upgrade, but it doesn't matter because you secured your expansion".
Really interesting OP, I'm definitely going to be trying this style out on the ladder for the next few days. After watching your replay I wanted to ask you a few questions though:
1) About your opening push, do you worry about it being countered by Zerg's if they expect it? Or do you feel it's generally solid? I saw in your game where the Zerg went for an eco-roach/bane bust, you scanned his natural shortly before pushing. Is there something specifically you are looking for to tell you you cannot push? Roach Warren perhaps (he did end up beating your push cost efficiently with Roaches, your push was 20 seconds late though so maybe you can chalk it up to that)?
2) Is there a reason all your replays and your VOD is on that same map? Is it just because you feel it best showcases your style with it's openness but also many chokes? Any maps you feel like this style wouldn't work?
3) Any particular reason you use this opening? Do you feel standard Hellion/Banshee or even BFH opening could work as well? Did you try these and decide you didn't like them for some reason?
On December 16 2012 06:28 ZjiublingZ wrote: Really interesting OP, I'm definitely going to be trying this style out on the ladder for the next few days. After watching your replay I wanted to ask you a few questions though:
1) About your opening push, do you worry about it being countered by Zerg's if they expect it? Or do you feel it's generally solid? I saw in your game where the Zerg went for an eco-roach/bane bust, you scanned his natural shortly before pushing. Is there something specifically you are looking for to tell you you cannot push? Roach Warren perhaps (he did end up beating your push cost efficiently with Roaches, your push was 20 seconds late though so maybe you can chalk it up to that)?
2) Is there a reason all your replays and your VOD is on that same map? Is it just because you feel it best showcases your style with it's openness but also many chokes? Any maps you feel like this style wouldn't work?
3) Any particular reason you use this opening? Do you feel standard Hellion/Banshee or even BFH opening could work as well? Did you try these and decide you didn't like them for some reason?
Thanks for the really interesting guide!
1) I do not think that this push can be so easily stopped at the start unless they cut heavy resources. I scan ahead looking for drone count / what type of structures or if I am lucky to see unit counter. However the reaper opening gives me a good assessment of that. I wasn't too worried on his roaches stopping it because I am able to easily defend any counter aggression with siege tank widow mine if positioned properly.
2) It just so happened that way, no particular reason it's just that for some reason that map comes up 4/5 games for me. I can't think of a map where this wouldn't work.
3) I use the widow mine opening because it forces overseers and spore crawlers. They are also ok against roaches and queens they are more well rounded. I use hellions more for drone harass and hellbats more for mass ling. However this push forces the enemy to stop droning and make units while I establish a third.
I think I played you on Antiga yesterday (name on HotS is Tycho). I went mutas into swarm hosts, you made tons of widow mines and ghosts. My mutas did absolutely nothing (you built like 20+ turrets on 3 bases haha), but in the end I think I just battering ram'd with around 30 swarm hosts until the game ended.
I don't see ghosts included anywhere in the guide, were you just testing that idea? Were you preparing for swarm hosts specifically? Using snipe + nukes to zone them was a really novel idea.
On December 16 2012 07:20 sevia wrote: I think I played you on Antiga yesterday (name on HotS is Tycho). I went mutas into swarm hosts, you made tons of widow mines and ghosts. My mutas did absolutely nothing (you built like 20+ turrets on 3 bases haha), but in the end I think I just battering ram'd with around 30 swarm hosts until the game ended.
I don't see ghosts included anywhere in the guide, were you just testing that idea? Were you preparing for swarm hosts specifically? Using snipe + nukes to zone them was a really novel idea.
This is a strategy i'm still working on yes! Inbetween sniping overseers to protect widow mines, sniping queens and laying nukes around is a style i'm currently developing. I'm still trying to find the proper opening for it and expansion timings.
Been trying it a bit. I guess I need a lot of practice with it, but I doesn't really feel like mech is that good. I guess on small maps you can set up turret rings and spread out turrets to cover everything and that can work. BUt on large maps you can't really. And I feel like mech just sucks too badly vs vipers. Like if they get some vipers you just can't shoot them down with vikings fast enough. You need to be spread out well with turrets and mines to defend vs that. But that's just not always possible on large masp as you need to defend multiple locations at once. Has anyone tried to use ravens to deal with vipers?
On December 16 2012 19:46 Hider wrote: Been trying it a bit. I guess I need a lot of practice with it, but I doesn't really feel like mech is that good. I guess on small maps you can set up turret rings and spread out turrets to cover everything and that can work. BUt on large maps you can't really. And I feel like mech just sucks too badly vs vipers. Like if they get some vipers you just can't shoot them down with vikings fast enough. You need to be spread out well with turrets and mines to defend vs that. But that's just not always possible on large masp as you need to defend multiple locations at once. Has anyone tried to use ravens to deal with vipers?
I played a game yesterday against heavy viper hydra roach usage on a 4 player large map, i'll upload it later this evening.
Wow. Just got done with about ~10 TvZ's with this style. Just wow. It really changes the game. You can actually do pushes with small numbers of units, you can actually be "out on the map" in the mid-game (to an extent). Anyone who doesn't like Mech for it's passiveness and it's deathball-ness, you really should try out this style of play. You can actually slow push across the map, controlling multiple areas. It really changes the pace of the games completely. Thanks so much for the guide Mario, I will be watching your stream.
(p.s. a similar style seems to work in TvP, at least better than anything else I have done so far)
Holy shit. Dat widow mine usage. I think every other T in HoTs has neglected this unit, just building a few to make due.
I was looking for your TvZ games in the Vod you posted and stumbled upon a TvP at 4:09:38. Everybody needs to watch that.
One of the scariest things as a mech player to see is a toss fleet of carriers/tempests/oracles. But Nope 20 widow mines that can now burrow instantly destory toss air. My jaw literally dropped at the first burrow. Like half of the fleet died in one wave. Amazing. TvP guide next sir
On December 16 2012 19:46 Hider wrote: Been trying it a bit. I guess I need a lot of practice with it, but I doesn't really feel like mech is that good. I guess on small maps you can set up turret rings and spread out turrets to cover everything and that can work. BUt on large maps you can't really. And I feel like mech just sucks too badly vs vipers. Like if they get some vipers you just can't shoot them down with vikings fast enough. You need to be spread out well with turrets and mines to defend vs that. But that's just not always possible on large masp as you need to defend multiple locations at once. Has anyone tried to use ravens to deal with vipers?
I played a game yesterday against heavy viper hydra roach usage on a 4 player large map, i'll upload it later this evening.
Thanks, I really feel like tvz mech is a shitton more difficult than mech in wol. IN wol you only needed to prepare for the hive switch. But right now I feel like I have to do so much more stuff than the zerg to beat his composition.
On December 17 2012 06:48 XXXSmOke wrote: Holy shit. Dat widow mine usage. I think every other T in HoTs has neglected this unit, just building a few to make due.
I was looking for your TvZ games in the Vod you posted and stumbled upon a TvP at 4:09:38. Everybody needs to watch that.
One of the scariest things as a mech player to see is a toss fleet of carriers/tempests/oracles. But Nope 20 widow mines that can now burrow instantly destory toss air. My jaw literally dropped at the first burrow. Like half of the fleet died in one wave. Amazing. TvP guide next sir
Sssh you weren't supposed to see this! This is one game where I am testing my new TvP strategy trying to perfect it for another guide. ^^ I am glad you enjoyed the game though.
General way I lose is either muta's combined with not enough anti air at home, or being simply overrun by a roach push, and when your initial forward units are killed it is quite hard to come back, let alone regain a positional advantage.
On December 17 2012 14:07 Khalleb wrote: His there a way for zerg to win with that ? How do you lose against zerg with that build ?
One way is if zerg is good at denying bases, finding weak points in the defenses.
The more mines i have the better swarm hosts and brood lords look. infestors are really nice at freezing the mines in place too. I don't recommend attacking a fully defended terran at his strong point but the more mines the more swarm host infestor or broodlord.
Thanks for showing me this mario, im using a variation of this with my own playstyle and it works pretty well, especially once vipers are out. Vipers have replaced broodlords as the "if i get these i beat mech" units. its funny seeing zergys cry about OP mines because they cant 1 A into my blind army anymore.
On December 18 2012 08:41 Pookie Monster wrote: Thanks for showing me this mario, im using a variation of this with my own playstyle and it works pretty well, especially once vipers are out. Vipers have replaced broodlords as the "if i get these i beat mech" units. its funny seeing zergys cry about OP mines because they cant 1 A into my blind army anymore.
These are great to support with vipers yes because blind does not affect them. I really really dislike that viper cloud but I am glad we have the mines to help.
People are too busy looking at the initial damage of the mine and saying "well its weaker" yeah but then there is splash so the weakened roach still dies when a second mine goes off even if it isn't hitting it directly
On December 23 2012 09:02 Pookie Monster wrote: People are too busy looking at the initial damage of the mine and saying "well its weaker" yeah but then there is splash so the weakened roach still dies when a second mine goes off even if it isn't hitting it directly
The initial damage is only really there to effect units like BLs I think. Splash is meant to remain the same so the mine is still viable.
I have a question. I've been watching your stream yesterday and noticed you are also using a "variation" of sorts, where you go for a 1-1-1 with an armory and make an initial attack with 3-5 helions +1 medivac, transforming them to hellbats on site. I found it to be extra powerful and gave it a shot already (i tried with 1-1+armory and no medivac for earlier aggression) and it seems to be working very well. Is this a new opener you are trying, do you already have it "standardized" or are you fleshing it out currently?
Cheers in advance and thanks for your great guides.
On January 17 2013 20:57 Silvang wrote: Hey Mario.
Thanks for the excellent guide!
I have a question. I've been watching your stream yesterday and noticed you are also using a "variation" of sorts, where you go for a 1-1-1 with an armory and make an initial attack with 3-5 helions +1 medivac, transforming them to hellbats on site. I found it to be extra powerful and gave it a shot already (i tried with 1-1+armory and no medivac for earlier aggression) and it seems to be working very well. Is this a new opener you are trying, do you already have it "standardized" or are you fleshing it out currently?
Cheers in advance and thanks for your great guides.
I have also found this to be quite powerful. I personally have been doing a 1-2-0 with armory and hitting with 6 hellbats (2 are made by the first factory while waiting for the second to complete, then 2 at each) with a couple of waves of 4 following up shortly after. I've found that even if you eventually sacrifice this force it puts you ahead, and making a round or 2 of mines from the hellbats before the end of the assault makes any counter attacks very unlikely to succeed. From here however I don't play with Marios style, I make a CC, and a second rax behind the attack, swap the reactors onto the rax and transition into marine/tank with bio upgrades and add on a starport with the aim to eventually be using MMM with mine support in the late game. It's funny tho, because it seems that this opener and harsh transition gives enough defence and a fair bit of flexibility.
On January 17 2013 20:57 Silvang wrote: Hey Mario.
Thanks for the excellent guide!
I have a question. I've been watching your stream yesterday and noticed you are also using a "variation" of sorts, where you go for a 1-1-1 with an armory and make an initial attack with 3-5 helions +1 medivac, transforming them to hellbats on site. I found it to be extra powerful and gave it a shot already (i tried with 1-1+armory and no medivac for earlier aggression) and it seems to be working very well. Is this a new opener you are trying, do you already have it "standardized" or are you fleshing it out currently?
Cheers in advance and thanks for your great guides.
i just want to comment that ive been doing this opener for a while in the beta, but doing a timing with blueflame and armory; with last patch you dont need to research blueflame so i would suspect you could probably fit in another dropship, maybe even a quicker thor.
On December 16 2012 07:20 sevia wrote: I think I played you on Antiga yesterday (name on HotS is Tycho). I went mutas into swarm hosts, you made tons of widow mines and ghosts. My mutas did absolutely nothing (you built like 20+ turrets on 3 bases haha), but in the end I think I just battering ram'd with around 30 swarm hosts until the game ended.
I don't see ghosts included anywhere in the guide, were you just testing that idea? Were you preparing for swarm hosts specifically? Using snipe + nukes to zone them was a really novel idea.
This is a strategy i'm still working on yes! Inbetween sniping overseers to protect widow mines, sniping queens and laying nukes around is a style i'm currently developing. I'm still trying to find the proper opening for it and expansion timings.
ok guys this THIS can be a wonderfull strat really
keep on bro, i will test TONIGHT ur build
EDIT : Mario, are u featured on TL.net ? where can i see when u are streaming pls ?
On December 16 2012 07:20 sevia wrote: I think I played you on Antiga yesterday (name on HotS is Tycho). I went mutas into swarm hosts, you made tons of widow mines and ghosts. My mutas did absolutely nothing (you built like 20+ turrets on 3 bases haha), but in the end I think I just battering ram'd with around 30 swarm hosts until the game ended.
I don't see ghosts included anywhere in the guide, were you just testing that idea? Were you preparing for swarm hosts specifically? Using snipe + nukes to zone them was a really novel idea.
This is a strategy i'm still working on yes! Inbetween sniping overseers to protect widow mines, sniping queens and laying nukes around is a style i'm currently developing. I'm still trying to find the proper opening for it and expansion timings.
ok guys this THIS can be a wonderfull strat really
keep on bro, i will test TONIGHT ur build
EDIT : Mario, are u featured on TL.net ? where can i see when u are streaming pls ?
Update! (If the video doesn't work please allow 10 minutes to pass as it is processing):
Hey everyone, I decided to try a video tutorial instead of a typed out one. This allows me to go into further depth and really explain positioning / battles. If you however don't like the video example please provide feed back and I will type out the guide as well. This video guide is approximately 1 hour 20 minutes long.
Looking forward to watching the video when it's finished processing. Would be cool if you could collaborate/discuss with other mech players like Goody to get their thoughts
Given he is top 40GM, i think he's alright with meching.
He's actually a low GM, below the top 100 with a record far inferior to 2:1. My biggest reservations are toward the fact that the Koreans Zerg and Terran said there was no way mech would work against a good zerg. That plus the fact that bio works really well against zerg make me not see the pertinence of mech TvZ. In essence my question is; why should I mech TvZ rather than go bio?
Given he is top 40GM, i think he's alright with meching.
He's actually a low GM, below the top 100 with a record far inferior to 2:1. My biggest reservations are toward the fact that the Koreans Zerg and Terran said there was no way mech would work against a good zerg. That plus the fact that bio works really well against zerg make me not see the pertinence of mech TvZ. In essence my question is; why should I mech TvZ rather than go bio?
I play on europe a lot and I have a 60% win loss, I peaked at top 25 gm when I was playing NA actively. This isn't an advertisement on a car sale. If you don't want to mech, don't. This is what works for me at grandmaster and will benefit most of the north america / europe population who want to mech at their level.
He's actually a low GM, below the top 100 with a record far inferior to 2:1. My biggest reservations are toward the fact that the Koreans Zerg and Terran said there was no way mech would work against a good zerg. That plus the fact that bio works really well against zerg make me not see the pertinence of mech TvZ. In essence my question is; why should I mech TvZ rather than go bio?
You should remember that even if a playstyle is not 'viable' for korean top GSL player you can still use it for yourself and you will see that most playstyle can be done at master or below play.
Why should you go for mech? for fun ofc!!! All is about fun unless you are a professional. If you enjoy positional playing do HTOmario kind of stuff, that is great! Otherwise do your own stuff you enjoy most.
On April 16 2013 23:23 HTOMario wrote: I play on europe a lot and I have a 60% win loss, I peaked at top 25 gm when I was playing NA actively. This isn't an advertisement on a car sale. If you don't want to mech, don't. This is what works for me at grandmaster and will benefit most of the north america / europe population who want to mech at their level.
Sorry if I came across as trolling, this wasn't my intention, I'm simply trying to figure something out and, sadly, it's hard to convey tone through text. If you leave the fun/interest out of the equation, do you believe that mech is a superior (more sure/efficient) play style than bio? And on another note, is your choice to play mech purely motivated by the attraction you have toward that style of play/fun you have doing it, leaving the potential performance-wise aside?
On April 16 2013 23:23 HTOMario wrote: I play on europe a lot and I have a 60% win loss, I peaked at top 25 gm when I was playing NA actively. This isn't an advertisement on a car sale. If you don't want to mech, don't. This is what works for me at grandmaster and will benefit most of the north america / europe population who want to mech at their level.
Sorry if I came across as trolling, this wasn't my intention, I'm simply trying to figure something out and, sadly, it's hard to convey tone through text. If you leave the fun/interest out of the equation, do you believe that mech is a superior (more sure/efficient) play style than bio? And on another note, is your choice to play mech purely motivated by the attraction you have toward that style of play/fun you have doing it, leaving the potential performance-wise aside?
I believe that in time mech will become even with bio, I do think that it has top play potential. My motivation to play mech is motivated by how much i dislike bio and enjoy mech.
Just finished watching the video. Thanks for the guide Mario I enjoyed it and good some good points out of it. I've been playing MMMM with success so I haven't had the desire to switch but this guide certainly gives me motivation to give mech a go.
I'd like to give my feedback to help you improve your guides in the future.
I think instead of producing a video 1hr 17 minutes long it could be a good idea to break up the guide into sections and create separate videos. Think of the most important things new meching players need to learn and break it up into 3-5 sections. For example: build order, positioning, unit composition, engagements, etc. This would help players that need specific advice in 1 area and would be able to get to that information quickly without having to watch the whole video. Also could help people that want to go back of your content and get to a specific area of the guide without having to remember at what point in the video it was explained. Also keep in mind that humans have a very low attention spam and can rarely sit and watch the same thing for over an hour lol!
Also (correct me if I am wrong) I got the feeling that during the guide you weren't 100% clear on who your target audience was. Was the guide for lower bronze-plat level? Was it for diamond+? During some points of the video you went over some very basic points that would have been helpful for lower levels but as a Diamond player I found them useless, finding myself wanting to skip. To help ensure that the viewer of your videos (or any other piece of content) its important to initially define who your audience is and build your content with that audience in mind. Perhaps you could create seperate videos for different levels of play so the person watching the video gets information specifically catered to their needs.
The only other thing I can think of is I didn't feel scouting was addressed much in this guide. As mech requires a long time to produce and becauuse you reccomend several different unit compositions for different situations I think that scouting would be one of the most important aspects of mastering this style. I did notice you talked about adding additional CCs and using them for scans but I would have like to have seen it go into more detail on specific timings of when to scout for different strategies and how to pick up on tells that Z is going for a specific unit composition.
Thanks again Mario and keep up the Terran guides. This community needs them!
Hi. Thank you so much for this guide! I have only watched the start as of writing this but I am really excited. Mech is so much fun anda has really renewed my interest in playing Starcraft 2. The "safe build" that you show in the video seems a bit complicated though and I will probably stick to some of your older builds.
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